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Comment by nirav72 | Hacker News Reader

This isn’t surprising, considering 50+ gamers came of age at the start of home gaming boom. They grew up on video games. Either on Atari, Calico , Intellivision , Commodore or later NES. Also arcades. 50+ year olds are probably at a point in their lives where they also have a bit more disposable income than later generations. Although, in my case at 51,despite having the disposable income - I just don't have the time to invest in a game that requires lot of grinding away. Especially with many of the big-budget popular MMORPGs that require lot of play hours.

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Yeah, anyone shocked by this is confused by the nature of both humans and linear time.

This is why it's impossible for me to take seriously anyone who claims that a given medium is only for kids. Kids grow up, and adults who love a medium move it forwards into something adults can take seriously, thereby proving that anxiety over whether a medium is "too young" for you is fundamentally adolescent, and rooted in anxiety over your own maturity. Certain works can be too immature to satisfy an adult, but a given medium is infinitely malleable and can tell stories at any level.

Of course, this relates to the similarly pointless diatribes that refuse to distinguish between a medium, a genre, and a level of quality, and therefore insist that a given medium is only for works in a given genre with a given (assumed low) level of quality. I don't have time for a single second of that nonsense.

I think there really was a time when gaming seemed like a fundamentally limited medium that was really mostly for children. Non-bankswitched 2600 games, for example, are not really a medium that can be used for very much interesting storytelling, just not-very-repeatable (unless you're 8 years old) "flashing colors" experiences. I agree that it wasn't long after the 2600 era that this changed dramatically though. In the US, it realistically was the success of the Commodore 64 that changed this. 64k of memory and much more capable video hardware completely changed the game. Similar machines led this revolution in Europe.

Actually, even before the 2600 there were complex mainframe and Unix games (for the very limited audiences that had access to these machines), but my point is that I can't really blame somebody in, say, 1978 seeing an Atari cartridge game and thinking it would never be something adults were interested in.

BTW, do you know the 1983 book "Pilgrim in the Microworld"[0]? It's a truly insightful and deep critique of Breakout and playing video-games in general, from the era (and machine!) you're speaking of. I can only recommend it!

[0] modren reprint: https://bossfightbooks.com/products/breakout

I've never seen this but I loved "Racing the Beam" which is also about the 2600. Will definitely check this one out.

Very different books, but both are good!

Also not surprised. I was impressed with how many older people played World of Warcraft just for the social life. Can't get 3 folks over for bridge? No problem, fire up the computer.

Put a bunch of older guys in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn to go out machine hunting, I'm sure they would be all for it. Add a crafting/building component so that groups could build villages and what not (minecraft meets HZD meets Counter Strike) kind of environments, it would be much more fun that sitting around watching the TV right?

>Can't get 3 folks over for bridge?

I don't think bridge is very popular with GenX. I could be wrong though.

Anecdotally, euchre is still quite popular with midwestern GenXers, and serves mostly the same social purpose.

If true they are missing out, I like bridge because for me it is the only card game where skill can overcome luck.

I am not yet 50+ but it won't be long now.

Yeah, I had a ZX Spectrum when I was ten.

And I am an avid Path Of Exile player with Civilization thrown in between leagues and play Splendor with my brother over the Internet practically daily.

Completely fits.

I'm in a similar boat. PoE + others, nearing 50. I had the old Colecovision AFTER I had the Texas Instruments console TI-99 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ4xHXkCvto

I got the Ti-99/4A as a bday gift in '83.Then within a few months Texas Instruments discontinued it. I still have it in a box somewhere. Been kicking around some ideas. Maybe remove the mainboard and put in a RaspberryPi 4 or some other SBC. Then wire it up to the keyboard. Someone was selling a board on tindie that made it possible to connect the keyboard ribbon cable to USB. But sadly its no longer being sold.

I was thinking the same thing. I just turned 50, learned to code on a ZX Spectrum, and regularly play Space Station 14, Dwarf Fortress and Elite Dangerous among others.

There are many of us that grew up in the 80s / early 90s who still play games today.

I think the view of gamers are 20 years behind reality and uses outdated stereotypes. Just look at the comment in another thread that assumes 50-year olds play bridge, like being old means you are stuck in a 90s cliche of what older people do.

Why wouldn't we continue playing games? There may be a period in life where work and/or kids takes more of your gaming time, but once you get older you have more personal time that can be spent on gaming.

The average US gamer is currently 35 years old and increasing. 46% of American gamers are female.

>46% of American gamers are female

Kinda depends on whether the "gamer" means "someone who occasionally plays games or "self identified as member of specific gamer culture". The word gamer can mean both.

Full disclosure: I am a woman who strongly refuses the title "gamer" and occasionally playing some games. For me, it means specific culture I decided I don't want to be member of.

> Calico

ColecoVision

I don’t know if you remember, but before the cartridge consoles, we had a shit ton of black and white PONG consoles… all with the same 5 games. I think they all used the same chip but changed the packaging and controllers.

My dad and brother used to always talk about playing Zaxxon when I was super young.

Yup. Ours was an odysee system. That started it for me. Been gaming ever since

Yeah, I remember those single game machines as well. But like most kids , including me the time , the first exposure to a home console was when the Atari 2600 was released. It seemed liked everyone had one. Of course there were few kids that had the ColecoVision or Intellivsion box (with its weird funky controller)

A few chips, in fact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AY-3-8500

http://www.pong-story.com/gi.htm

It was an interesting era in chip design.

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